Citing archival sources

edited August 31, 2017
Hi, I am having trouble citing historical archives.

This is the entry I have in Zotero:
Type: Letter
Author: Hammad to M Schneider
Date: 1 October 1984
Loc. in Archive: File Number WHOHQ P 9-445-25, Box A.1330, Folder 3
Archive: WHO Archives
Date Added: 8/3/2017, 10:12:55 AM
Modified: 8/8/2017, 1:58:15 PM

Organized in this way, I am able to generate a correct full reference using Chicago:

Hammad to M Schneider, October 1, 1984. File Number WHOHQ P 9-445-25, Box A.1330, Folder 3. WHO Archives.

However, I need to use a different style for the manuscript I am working on. I am using WHO Regional Office for Europe (numeric) that I obtained from the Zotero Style Repository. When I generate a reference for the entry above in this style, I get this:

1. Hammad to M Schneider. , 1984.

How can I achieve the full reference with this style? Are there any near-future plans to develop an item type specific to archives?

Thank you.
  • edited September 1, 2017
    This doesn't fully answer your question but it does suggest a more appropriate way to enter sender and recipient:

    https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/adding_a_letter_or_memo

    It also makes a recommendation to use the "type" field (enter "letter" there). (Different from, and in addition to the topmost Item Type.)

    I can't be more helpful with the in-text and bibliography appearance of the item within different styles. However, I think that you may have an improved citation if the style is better able to recognize that the type is a letter and that the record has a sender (author) and a recipient.
  • For the WHO style -- not all citation styles are complete and it takes a lot of work to implement archival materials correctly in a citation style, so I'm afraid there are no great options here -- unless you have a lot of these citations, the easiest is likely to manually fix them in the end.
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